


and then

by stonyindustries



Category: Marvel
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friends to Lovers, Hurt Steve Rogers, Hurt/Comfort, Hydra (Marvel), Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Protective Tony Stark, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-04-11 23:16:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19119712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stonyindustries/pseuds/stonyindustries
Summary: The team rescue Steve from HYDRA after being held prisoner for over a month. The aftermath is hard.





	and then

It’s been three days. Three days stranded on an island off the west coast of Africa with no communications, no food and no fresh water. Three days since escaping and promptly blowing up a HYDRA base, which unfortunately also meant blowing up his ride out of there.  
He waits, alone and somber, for his knight in shining armour.

They find him after a month. Well, a month and nine days, but who’s counting? They’d all spent every waking moment searching but Tony had without doubt been the most frantic of them all. The first week he refused to leave the workshop and it was only with the combined effort of Rhodes and Natasha that he was convinced he wouldn’t be of any help to Steve in the state he was.  
Once they track down some HYDRA agent who, after some Natasha-style convincing, tells them about the old HYDRA base off the coast of Africa, they leave immediately.

When they arrive, they find Steve a few kilometres out from the wreckage, passed out, injured, and malnourished.  
They bring him back to the tower’s medical station; he doesn’t stir all through the flight. Tony wants to throw up with worry.

He wakes up in the tower two days later with half a dozen tubes and wires connected to him. Tony sits slumped on the chair and Steve manages a tired smile at the sight of his best friend as he reaches out to nudge him. A shaky breath rattles through his lungs and he brings his hand under the sheets as it starts to shake and Tony starts to stir. He’s not okay, but he will be. He will.

When Tony wanders up to the communal kitchen one night, or morning depending on how you looked at it, he starts at the sight of Steve staring out the windows.  
Since he woke up in medical nearly a week ago now, he’d insisted he was fine but clammed up whenever anyone even mentioned the time he’d spent with HYDRA or on the island at all.  
Right now he doesn’t seem to have noticed Tony as he stares out the windows, mouth slightly agape and eyes glazed. It’s only as Tony slowly approaches that he notices the bloody knuckles that indicate a late night training session - rarely a good sign.  
He wishes he could pull Steve into his arms, run his hands through golden hair and trail soft kisses down his back. Instead, he cautiously lays a hand on Steve’s shoulder and whispers what he hopes are soft comforts, but suspects the other man doesn’t hear him at all. Eventually though, Steve turns to him and stares. He seems to realise what he’s doing and drops his eyes and licks his lips nervously. He tries to pull away as his chest starts to heave but Tony grips his shoulder firmly and slowly brings his other arm up to cradle the back of his head. They stand there, quietly with arms wrapped around each other as the sun rises on a crisp new day and tears fall from the bluest eyes Tony’s ever seen.

He doesn’t see Steve after that. They had stood for several minutes or hours or days and then Steve had pulled away and Tony could do nothing but watch his retreating back.  
The team worried.  
Each tried their own way of coaxing their way into his floor or else convincing Steve to join them, but their attempts were met with a worrying silence and JARVIS informed them their captain had ordered him to keep his floor on lockdown.  
He’d isolated himself completely and Tony wanted to cry with frustration.

It’s only two days before Tony decides _fuck it, I’ve never been a patient man_ , and inputs his override code. He exits the elevator on Steve’s floor and JARVIS directs him to the studio he’d had set up a little while after Steve moved in. He remembers Steve’s Frown of Disapproval, which he’d since learned was his Frown of Concern, when he’d got woken up one morning to workmen bustling around his floor. It had taken a few days but Tony figured it was worth it if it made the Capsicle happy and, apparently, provided some sort of refuge.  
When he ducks in under the the frame, he immediately spots Steve slumped over his desk, head pillowed on folded arms and snoring quietly. He can’t help his soft smile as he approaches him with the intent of waking him up and moving him to his bed, until he notices the drawing Steve’s drooling on.  
It’s him, Tony in the armour. He’s looking slightly off to the side, expression soft and happy. It isn’t finished but Tony can see the care that’s been put into it. Overtaken by curiosity, he tugs on the sheet peeking out from below that and discovers a pair of hands gripping a screwdriver rendered in careful charcoal strokes. He feels his brows climb as he realises they’re his hands. Curiosity further piqued, he pulls other loose sheets towards him on the desk and finds more drawings and sketches of him; not all of him, sometimes it’s just features like his hands, his eyes, his mouth. There’s two of the arc reactor and one of the suit and each one is simple but it’s clear they were done with great care, a delicate kind of intimacy to each one. He’s still staring, awestruck, when Steve’s eyes blink open and he sits up, sluggish, turning to face Tony.  
He squints and blushes when his eyes fall to the drawings still pulled toward Tony.  
“Tony, I -”  
Words seem to fail them as they stare, both transfixed by the other and time slowed to a crawl. It’s quiet enough to hear both their bated breaths labouring as Tony lifts his hand to tilt Steve’s face towards him.  
“Is this - ” Tony stops and wets his lips. “Is this okay?”  
Wordlessly Steve nods and Tony moves in, pressing their lips together. It’s soft at first but gathers momentum as they grow bolder and stronger and there’s a point where it becomes less like love and more like a lifeline. Steve pulls him closer, fists clenched in his ratty old AC/DC shirt  
When they eventually break off for air they can’t even seem to move away from each other. They lean their foreheads together and Tony watches as Steve’s Adam apple moves and his eyes begin to water..  
“Oh, baby,” he murmurs and guides the blond out of the studio towards the sofa.  
They sit there, alone together, with Steve’s head pressed up against Tony’s shoulder as Tony runs his hands comfortingly through his hair.  
He’s not sure what happened in that HDYRA base or what’s going to come of them together, but sitting curled up together as the sun sets across the New York scape, he knows it’ll all work out. He’ll make sure of it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed!  
> My tumblr is here: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/wing-heads


End file.
